Top al-Qaeda associate caught in Afghanistan

Nato and Afghan forces have captured the leader of the Afghan branch of the
Haqqani network, dealing a severe blow to one of the country's most
dangerous anti-Western insurgent groups.

Rob Crilly in Islamabad

6:21PM BST 01 Oct 2011

The announcement marks the second major victory against militant figures in 24 hours, following the death of Anwar al-Awlaqi, the key al-Qaeda propagandist in Yemen.

The detention of Haji Mali Khan, the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani - the day-to-day leader of the group - comes amid intense American pressure on Afghanistan's neighbour Pakistan to act against the Haqqanis, who are closely associated with al-Qaeda and blamed for a string of high-profile attacks on Western targets.

Mali Khan was captured in Paktia, south-easternAfghanistanclose to the border with Pakistan, according to a statement issued by Isaf, the Nato-led force.

"Although he was heavily armed during the operation that led to his capture, Mali Khan submitted to the security force without incident or resistance," it said, describing his capture as a "significant milestone" in disrupting the group.

Officials said a large number of insurgents were also captured during the operation, including Mali Khan's deputy and bodyguard.

The Haqqanis, who operate alongside the Taliban, have been a major focus of American attention this year, targeted by drone strikes flying over Pakistan's tribal belt and by ground troops in Afghanistan.

So far Pakistan has resisted pressure to launch a major ground offensive against the group's bases in North Waziristan.

US State Department officials are mulling over whether to designate the group as a terrorist organisation and on Thursday announced sanctions on five individuals thought to be fuelling the insurgency.

The Haqqani network was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a warlord who made his name during the 1980s jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, when he received funding from Pakistan and the CIA. Such was his success in fighting Soviet occupation that he was even invited to the White House to meet President Ronald Reagan.

Today Haqqani is a member of the Taliban's supreme council but his son Sirajuddin now effectively runs the network. American intelligence and military officials describe them as the most deadly force in the country.

The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks. In recent months it has focused on audacious assaults on heavily defended Western targets in an apparent effort to maximise publicity.

In June their fighters launched a commando assault on the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel. A small team of gunmen roamed from room to room in an attack that left nine attackers, two policemen and 11 civilians dead by the time special forces from New Zealand helped end the raid.

And last month, US officials said they believed the Haqqanis were behind a 19-hour attack on the US embassy in which some 25 people died.

The attack provoked a furious reaction from US figures, who have piled pressure on Pakistan to clear their border regions of Haqqani bases. They have long believed that Pakistan's intelligence agency retains links to the group as agents hedge their bets in case the insurgents come to power.

But the attack on the US embassy provoked a rare public accusation that Pakistan was itself directing the violence.

Admiral Mike Mullen, retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Islamabad of exporting violence to Afghanistan through proxies.

He told the US Armed Services Committee that Haqqani militants with Pakistani backing carried out a truck bombing on a Nato base in Afghanistan last month that wounded 77 Americans. And in the most serious allegation yet of Pakistan's duplicity in the decade-long war, he added: "The Haqqani Network, for one, acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency."

The latest series of insurgent "spectaculars" meant that Nato and the US also needed their own high-profile victories in order to support their claims of improving security before leaving in 2014, according to Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani analyst.

"The Haqqanis are demonstrating their strength, that they are alive and kicking and a force to be reckoned with," he said. "Nato and America need their own success stories as part of this propaganda and psychological war."

Khan is believed to be one of the highest ranking members of the group, and ran bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is also accused of co-ordinating the transfer of money for militant operations and is believed to have acted as emissary between the Haqqanis and Baitullah Mehsud, former head of the Pakistani Taliban who was killed in a US drone strike in 2009.

Muhammad Amin, a former member of Afghanistan's security council, said Mali Khan was very close to Sirajuddin Haqqani.

"Whenever Siraj would be busy or away, Mali Khan would attend the meetings for (him)," he said. "I think it is quite significant that he has been arrested and for sure Mali Khan has lots of information."

His capture, however, comes at a particularly fraught moment in Afghanistan's fragile peace process. Last month a suicide bomber assassinated Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former Afghan president and the chair of the High Peace Council established by President Hamid Karzai.

The assassin posed as a peace envoy sent by the Taliban, staying for several days in Rabbani's Kabul villa before detonating an explosive device hidden in his turban.

Yesterday, the Afghan intelligence service said it had handed evidence in the case to Pakistani officials, showing that the attack had been planned across the border in the city of Quetta, known to be home to the Taliban leadership.

A spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Lutfulla Mashal, said: "The key person involved in the assassination of Rabbani has been arrested and he has provided lots of strong evidence about where and how it was planned. We have given all that evidence to the Pakistan embassy."

He said the documents included the address, photographs and layout of a house in Satellite, an upmarket residential area in the outskirts of Quetta, along with the names of individuals who discussed Rabbani's assassination.

Once again the role of Pakistan is in the spotlight. On Friday, President Karzai said the murder of Rabbani demonstrated that talking to insurgents was becoming increasingly futile and that neighbouring Pakistan – rather than the Taliban - needs to be the other party in the peace talks.

"A messenger comes disguised as a Taliban Council member and kills, and they neither confirm nor reject it. Therefore, we cannot talk to anyone but to Pakistan," he told a meeting of religious leaders in Kabul.

Pakistan has long used armed groups such as the Haqqanis as an unofficial arm of foreign policy and a means of hedging its bets and ensuring influence over any final political settlement in Afghanistan.

But some diplomats in Islamabad believe the country's military leadership has realised the policy has backfired, spawning terrorist groups who have killed thousands of Pakistanis. Whether they have an alternative strategy remains to be seen.